Arlan Hale
Arlan Hale was born on Corellia in 27 BBY. Unbeknownst to him, he was a clone of the pirate Whit Solomon, delivered to a Corellian fertility clinic, where the complete embryo was given to the woman who would become his mother. In his youth, he quickly made a foray into gunrunning against the Republic. He was quite skilled at the entire ordeal, making a good pilot and excellent combatant until the fall of the Republic and the rise of the Empire. At that time, he decided he was better off with the government than against it, so he signed up to become a Stormtrooper. Imperial Life He fought well, through the Empire's ups and downs, earning the rank of Sergeant in the Stormtrooper Corps; he got training as a scout trooper and excelled in it, but was eventually assigned to the most boring - yet allegedly most important - duty of all: security on the Super Star Destroyer Cleansing. He was never transferred again, after the war with the Xen'Chi began. When the vessel leapt from a battle with those same Xen'Chi, Arlan was still aboard. As the ghost of Damascus and the invading Xen'Chi prepared their armies to wipe out the few remaining sane Imperials, Arlan found himself caught in the middle - and chose to fight Damascus first. He ventured to the lower levels and "joined forces" (though "was coerced" might have been a more appropriate term) with three Xen'Chi to reach engineering and destroy the seemingly cursed ship. Throughout his entire life, Arlan was haunted by dreams - perhaps nightmares - about an 800-year-old pirate named Whit Solomon; Arlan barely remembered these dreams, but he had them every time he slept soundly enough to dream. The identity of this Whit Solomon remained a mystery, and Arlan chose not to think about it, especially as long as he had Xen'Chi and dead Emperors to worry about. His experiences on the Ghost Ship would haunt him for the rest of his life, and there could be no doubt that they changed him at his core. After an encounter with the Xen'Chi warrior Sar'Preyvor, he realized that these Xen'Chi had honor - and that he could not bring himself to kill more of them. Driven nearly mad by his proximity to the reborn Damascus, Arlan decided to resign from the Empire as soon as he had the chance. After being debriefed, he submitted his resignation to Admiral Dreskul, who approved it - on the condition that Delth Ardin be allowed to probe his mind for his experiences on the Ghost Ship. Mercenary Life and Research After that, Arlan was allowed to leave. He took civilian clothing, a few hundred credits, and an aching for the peaceful life, and took an Imperial shuttle to Svivren, where he met the human Eric Noble, the Ailon Tieradeff Jaggeron, and the Nalron Yerrix and got pulled into another adventure. While working on a smuggling delivery on Tatooine, a Twi'lek named Dysaga Ven (or Dysag'aven, in the Twi'lek style) mistook him for Geard Losian, a man plagued by dreams and destiny. His wife, probably widow, inadvertently supplied him with Losian's research about a planet, one which Losian supposed would cure him of his dreams. Before leaving, Arlan promised the woman that he would return and care for her as he never had before. His newfound companions questioned this promise, but Arlan gave them no further information. The planet, which Losian and his research called Baehorde, was, by legend, the final resting place of the pirate Whit Solomon. Arlan managed to convince his new crew that the treasures of Solomon were worth looking into, and they had a solid lead - they just needed more information. The crew left for the Outer Rim to pull odd jobs for cash while Arlan stayed on Coruscant to do research. He found important details in the notes of Simp Wafahi, a former crewman of Solomon's. He contacted the crew and they flew to Charmath, where he discovered, in the archives of the University of Charmath, the report of the early Republic explorers who discovered the planet originally, but although he found many details about the system and atmosphere of the planet, he did not find its designation or coordinates. They continued searching in similar libraries on similar worlds. After nearly a full year of searching, Arlan and his companions were granted access to the New Republic's Astrographic Survey Institute, or ASI, where at last he found an uncorrupted file of the report and discovered the coordinates of Baehorde, called in Republic records R29871. Baehorde Taking the Wayfarer, the crew traveled to Baehorde and descended, without incident, to a cave where sensors had detected an energy source - immediately before they were grounded by an ion storm. Entering the cave, they searched the area. Def discovered a human skeleton quite by accident. A small droid suddenly approached them from a hidden passage; after recognizing Arlan, it led them deeper, to the antechamber of Solomon's tomb - a room so filled with treasures that Yerrix declared their need for a bigger ship to haul it all. Meanwhile, Rakka and Scur of the Scautus Order pursued them to Baehorde. Once detected, they attacked, but the little droid - and its companions - sealed the entrance, before leading Arlan and his companions deeper into the cave. Arlan slowly began to lose interest in the dangerous Dark Jedi that pursued him as he became enamored with the tomb, until Eric snapped him back into formation, but this did not last long. When at last they reached the main chamber of the caves, presumably Solomon's final resting place, Arlan engaged the droid with questions, searching the vast room for something of interest. The droid worked its gears furiously, apparently accomplishing some task. The crew quickly became concerned with the immanence of the Dark Jedi - at which point the droid declared that no one would leave until "the master" - Solomon - had returned. When it became clear to the droid that Arlan and his companions did not understand the meaning of this statement, it activated the tomb defense systems - a veritable army of combat droids. The droid that had escorted Arlan this far ordered the crew to surrender, which they did reluctantly. The droids strapped Arlan to a platform, highly reminiscent of an operating table, and escorted the rest of the crew to a small cage beneath the main chamber. Arlan, no longer enamored, sought information on what would happen. The droids' answers were cryptic and uninformative, but they seemed pleased with Arlan as a specimen. At long last, the droids revealed to him the so-called purpose of his life: the vitals of Whit Solomon, preserved through mechanisms and machinery for eight hundred years. The droids explained that Solomon was effectively comatose, although a few heartbeats above dead would probably have been a more accurate description. As they injected his skull with fluids, the droids explained that they would be transferring Solomon's consciousness into Arlan's body. Meanwhile, the crew had met up, quite accidentally, with Sar'Preyvor, Shan Tslav, and Rethe Frettan. They entered the main chamber as the operation neared its completion; Con-Unit Prime, the droid which had led Arlan and his companions to the chamber in the first place, refused to believe that Frettan would not work alone, and so ordered that they all be killed. Arlan countermanded that order at the last possible second. Arlan approached his companions, weak from the operation. His mind was clearly confused, as he tried several times to introduce himself as Arlan Hale, only to stumble and try again. At long last, he completed the introduction, but not as Arlan Hale; rather, he declared that he was Captain Whit Solomon. The two minds were merged into one, thoughts and personalities and histories of both combined into a single being. Memories from both flooded arbitrarily to the surface at first as Arlan - or rather, Whit - took a few moments to recognize everyone in the room, with the exception of Shan Tslav, but he paid her no heed. At last the goal of Whit Solomon's life was complete: he had discovered a method of attaining immortality. Arlan Hale's consciousness subsided, submitting to the superior intellect and willpower of Solomon. Category:Characters Category:Corellians Category:Galactic Empire Category:Archangel